Creator Interviews

"Quiz RPG: The World of Mystic Wiz" and "White Cat Project" are hit titles of Colopl's smartphone games. We interviewed the two young creators of these games to ask about their passion for games, the spirit of Colopl and the secrets to creating new kinds of entertainment.

―What kind of year was 2014 for both of you?

Asai

Throughout 2014, I devoted myself to the creation of smartphone games. "Quiz RPG: The World of Mystic Wiz" (hereinafter "Mystic Wiz"), for which I am the project manager, entered its second year after launch, and I always sought for ways to make it more amusing to both existing and new users. Also, I had been involved for about one year with the planning and development of the "White Cat Project" (hereinafter "White Cat"), which was released in July 2014. For smartphone games, release is not the ultimate goal, but is rather the starting point. We are making ongoing efforts to improve the amusement and quality of our smartphone games.

Tsunoda

I had been working as a designer for Mystic Wiz until I was assigned as the project manager for White Cat. This brought about a huge change to my mind-set, as I had worries over not only the creation of games but also team building. For me, 2014 was a year of many personal struggles. I encountered trials every day and faced many ups and downs. These experiences helped me grow as a person. Until immediately before White Cat was released, some had said such an action game might not be popular. Despite all the anxiety, we were able to release White Cat with the support of people around us.

Asai

Just before the release of White Cat, even the creators of other departments joined in the final efforts in development. That was, indeed, an all-out effort across the Company.

―Can you tell us about the features of White Cat or any episodes in the process of development?

Tsunoda

The biggest feature of White Cat is that the game application is not a "card battle" type of game, which is a familiar category of smartphone game applications. Instead, it is designed as the popular act ion role-playing game (RPG) , with game characters freely walking around in a 3D space and full of adventures as you bring down enemies at your fingertips. With the strong intent of establishing a new genre of smartphone games, the White Cat game adopts "Punicon," or an innovative interface to enable one-finger screen operation, which was developed by Colopl.

Asai

Until midway through its development, White Cat had the concept of "stamina*1."

Tsunoda

However, we were advised by President Baba that stamina is no longer necessary to show the strength of this game as an authentic action RPG. Therefore, we decided to eliminate stamina so that players can enjoy the game as long as they want.

Asai

Of course, that was done after due consideration of the influence of eliminating stamina based on tests on the existing content. Since the market is changing on an ongoing basis, it is inevitable that some elements become outdated during the development stage. Tsunoda had insisted on removing the 2D card element. This I think shows his high sensitivity to the trend of the times.

Tsunoda

I appreciate the upside of the 2D element, but it's how to use the upside that matters. In Mystic Wiz, the strength of 2D can work effectively, whereas White Cat contained a cluttered mixture of the 2D element. It took trial and error to solve this problem.

Asai

A new attempt was also made in terms of engineering.

Tsunoda

Yes, it's the element of "four-player collaborative battle" through real-time synchronization. It was the first attempt for the team's engineers as well, and they had to develop the game while searching through the books on something they had not experienced before. Such experience in the development of White Cat brought about a remarkable advancement of the team's technological capabilities.

―Does Colopl have a distinctive culture or motto for the development of games?

Asai

A team member who says no to everything does not belong to Colopl. We are a team who always seek for solutions to realize our ideas. Making persistent efforts to achieve the best results is what I believe to be the culture of Colopl's creators.

Tsunoda

Another aspect of Colopl's culture is that good ideas and technologies are not kept to oneself but instead shared across the Company. For example, the Punicon technology was developed by another team but was adopted by the White Cat team. I think this open-minded nature of Colopl helps improve engineering and planning abilities on a Company-wide basis. As a project manager, I pay attention to not only the quality of a game itself, but also the technologies and playing methods that provide greater enjoyment to the game players.

Asai

Game users would quickly turn away from us if we produced something boring and would have lower expectations for our subsequent games, which is damaging to the Colopl brand. This is the exact reason why we will make every effort to produce something comparably amusing in developing any games subsequent to White Cat.

―Can you tell us about the future direction of Mystic Wiz and White Cat?

Tsunoda

White Cat was favorably accepted by more users than we expected, giving us a delightful surprise at the great number of people willing to play an action RPG like White Cat. At the same time, I feel the heavy responsibility to add more amusing aspects to the game so that players can enjoy it more. To achieve this, we are going to equip White Cat with new features and propose new playing methods so that the game can be enjoyed in more ways according to the mood of the players.

Asai

It's been one and a half years since the release of Mystic Wiz, and the playing methods we originally designed have been mostly recognized among the players. During the past year, we listened to the feedback from users to continuously include amusing features to the game. In the summer of 2014, a realtime collaborative battle event was introduced to offer a new method of playing. We see it as important to continue to develop and provide unprecedented methods of playing the game. As a matter of course, we will also direct our efforts to enhance the stability of the system so that a greater number of users can play the game simultaneously. Fortunately, at Colopl, it is a part of our corporate culture to take in any elements that would be good for Mystic Wiz from not only White Cat but also other Colopl games and also to encourage the exchange of ideas with people on different teams across the Company, which will help us in continuing to upgrade the Mystic Wiz application.

―Finally, tell us about your hopes and plans for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015.

Asai

I have two. First, I want to keep supplying Mystic Wiz with new gaming features to the extent that the game players will find it a new game whenever such features are added, and foster Mystic Wiz to represent all smartphone quiz game applications. Another goal I have is to create an entirely new game of a nature that is different from both Mystic Wiz and White Cat; a game that is not expected by nowaday game players. I want to create a game beyond such expectations; a whole new world of entertainment never before experienced.

Tsunoda

I want to keep the fresh mind-set I had when I first began to develop White Cat, and work on further advancements. In addition, I would like to hone my skills as a game creator and remain sensitive to the newest technologies and whatever changes the smartphone game market may undergo in the future.

Asai

What Colopl values most is "straightforwardness." Colopl employees are always asked to sincerely accept any results and numbers they produce and any advice from others. We should sincerely face any result, even if it's a failure, and identify and correct the cause thereof to grow ourselves individually and on a team basis and enhance the content of our services.

Tsunoda

Not being content with the current state of things, we'll take the next step forward. Under the spirit of "Go Next," our corporate slogan for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, we will keep moving forward. Please continue to look forward to Colopl games.

*1 Stamina refers to something consumed to play or do actions during a game.